By Phil McAuliffe, Packet Media Group
In January of this year, it was announced that Pope Francis would be making a trip to North America and come to Philadelphia to preside over a large papal Mass concluding an event called the “World Meeting of Families.” This was an event that would draw hundreds of thousands of Pilgrims from around the world. It would also be a photographer’s treasure trove.
Back in 2008 I covered Pope Benedict in Washington for a news agency called Polaris Images. The huge crowds, the security that needed to be navigated to get images of the pope entering Catholic University and then the next day riding by in his Popemobile seemed hardly worth the effort.
But the images from the periphery were a different story – the faces, the diversity of culture and the emotion. Anywhere the pope goes it is a global event. And this time it would be happening 35 miles from my home with the most popular pope in decades.
Again, I would be photographing for Polaris Images, and over the next several months I would have to fill out media request forms, submit to Secret Service checks and send a head shot of myself for credentials. Once cleared, I thought it would be a simple matter of driving to Philly, parking somewhere for the day, taking my photos and then going home to sleep in my own bed.
As the event drew closer, however, the security situation was starting to look much more ominous. During the weekend of the pope’s visit, Philadelphia would be a closed city with no vehicular traffic, magnetomers just to cross the streets and upwards of 2 million people converging on the city from around the world. And I was committed to this event.
All of this meant taking a train to Philadelphia, getting a hotel for two nights at $350 per night – courtesy of Polaris – and getting around on foot. The media filing center was at the Pennsylvania Convention Center about a mile away from my hotel, next to Independence Hall or “Indy Hall” as the papal volunteers called it.
I would get a credential for the World Meeting of Families (WMOF) event, another one to get access to the filing center and two more for access to two of the pope’s events called “underlays.”
I arrived on Friday, Sept. 25, and the place was like a carnival. People in the streets, singing, dancing, music from different cultures and many, many t-shirt and souvenir venders. This meant just as many great photographs.
At 3 a.m. I started on foot with a 400 mm telephoto lens, tripod, several other lenses and two camera bodies for the one mile walk on deserted streets to the convention center. I had to be there by 4 a.m. to get my underlay pass for the pope’s first Philadelphia event and go through a security check. About a block away from my hotel, a Secret Service agent stopped me and asked where I was going. After showing him my credential, he told me that I couldn’t get to the convention center because security was still doing a sweep of the surrounding blocks because the pope would be speaking at “Indy Hall” later that day.
He tried calling some of his colleagues, with no luck, to see if there was a route that I could take to the convention center. Finally he personally walked me through the secure zone. I got there by 3:55 a.m. This was life in the largest national security event in U.S. history.
Members of our media pool were transported by bus with a police escort to the Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul where the pope would preside over a Mass after arriving from New York earlier that morning. A huge crowd had slept overnight behind police lines to catch a glimpse of the pope’s arrival. At around 10:15 a.m. from inside the church, we could hear the cheer of the crowd, then the roar of motorcycles and black SUVs escorting the pope’s small Fiat.
I was sharing a photo riser with the Philadelphia Inquirer, Reuters and CNN. At the last minute two TV and two still photographers from the Vatican press corps crowded onto our riser.
On cue the choir, which had been practicing for two hours, began to sing. Priests, deacons and guests all stood up as a procession of people filed in. Finally through a sea of heads and Smartphone cameras trying for a photo, the white cap of the short Pope Francis could be seen as he slowly made his way up the aisle. He then began his Mass, which lasted two and a half hours.
Sometimes as a photographer, I feel like I miss the experience of an event because I am so busy shooting pictures that I don’t stop to take it all in. During that two and a half hours, I stopped shooting images and just looked. “That’s the pope standing just a few feet away from me.” Back on our bus with police escort, it still took two hours to go four blocks.
There would be three more opportunities to photograph the pope. Later that day from my hotel next to “Indy Hall”; the following morning at Saint Charles Borromeo Seminary outside Philadelphia, where Francis was staying; and finally at the papal parade on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway just before the huge Mass where thousands would wait in line for up to five hours to gain access. Later that evening he would be flying back to Rome.
Standing in the crowd at Logan Square as the Popemobile approached, I could barely see through the waving throngs of Smartphone cameras, and in one case, an infant baby held aloft. I held up my camera fixed with a wide angle lens above my head. This technique is known in photography-speak as a “Hail Mary shot.”
It seemed appropriate for my last photo of Pope Francis.
Phil McAuliffe is the staff photographer for Packet Media Group.
